This document discusses political and civic participation in youth development as measured by the Youth Development Index (YDI). It notes that youth participation in formal politics is declining globally except in new democracies, though youth are more engaged in civic affairs through alternative modes of participation and technology. Enhancing youth participation requires measures like civic education, quotas, and citizenship education. The YDI measures youth development across five domains using 18 indicators, though data gaps exist, particularly in political and civic participation. Gender gaps also differ between regions and more disaggregated data is needed. Sub-national data is important to avoid averages hiding variations, and challenges collecting such data include outdated sources and competing priorities.

1. Threats and Opportunities:
Political and Civic Participation in the
Youth Development Index
Youth at the Heart of the 2030 Agenda: The Case for Space

2. Theory of Change
Commonwealth
Youth Programme
Youth
Ministries
Youth
Workers
Youth
Leaders
Systemic, sustained and/or catalytic change
Grassroots impact for young people
Thought leadership, facilitate connections, build capacity, demonstrate & inspire

3. Challenges
• Youth work is not recognised as a profession/field of study
• Dispersed, common work and competencies, but no
common identity – lack of association building.
• Inadequate qualifications pathways.
• Inadequate supervision of professional practice.
• Inadequate, sometimes decreasing, investments in youth
services and youth service management.
• Lack of evidence based approach to theory and practice

4. Vision next 5 years
By focusing on education and training of youth workers
(certificates, diplomas etc.) and expanding access to youth
work qualification we hope to see better trained and
equipped youth work practitioners (knowledge, skills and
competencies) in member states who are able to deliver
better support young people who will contribute to
development of member states.

5. Main objectives of the YDI
Evidence based policy
making
Monitor & track
progress in Youth
Development
Compare with data
sets that measure
economic, political,
cultural institutions
and outcomes
Advocacy for youth
specific data collection
& analysis
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6. Defining Youth Development
Youth is defined by the Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP)
as anyone between the ages of 15 and 29 years old.
Youth Development:
“enhancing the status of young people, empowering them to
build on their competencies and capabilities for life. It will
enable them to contribute and benefit from a politically
stable, economically viable, and legally supportive
environment, ensuring their full participation as active
citizens in their countries.”

7. Why a Youth Development Index?
• Comprehensive attempt to assess Youth Development
across countries
• 87% of young people aged 15-24 live in a developing
context
• 60% of the 2 billion Commonwealth citizens are under the
age of 30
• Youth development cannot be counted by one metric
alone; there are many dimensions which enable young
people to reach their full potential.
• Data advocacy

8. What is the YDI?
• A composite index…
• …comprised of 18 key indicators over 5 domains…
• …which collectively measure youth development…
• …in 183 countries…
• …including 49 of the 52 Commonwealth member states.

9. What is the YDI?
• Scores between 0 and 1, same as the HDI, national
averages
• Combines Quantitative data from variety of public sources,
from existing global data stocks
• Data is 2010-2015, best attempt to harmonize indicators
between countries
• Weightings determined by expert group
• Results can be viewed by youth bulge group, HDI group,
land area, income group, population group

10. The Five Domains of Youth Development Index

11. Youth Development Index Indicators
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DOMAINS INDICATORS
D1 EDUCATION
Enrolment in secondary education (gross)
Digital Natives (15-24)
Youth Literacy (15-24)
D2 HEALTH AND WELLBEING
Youth Mortality Rate
Drug abuse Rate (15-29)
Alcohol abuse rate by YLL (15-29)
Mental disorder rate by years of life lost (15-29)
HIV Rate (15-24)
Score on the Global Wellbeing Index (15-29)
D3 EMPLOYMENT AND OPPORTUNITY
Youth NEET rate
Ratio of youth (15-24) unemployment rate to adult unemployment rate
Existence of an account at a formal institution, young adults (% 15-24)
Adolescent fertility rate (birth per 1000 women aged 15-19)
D4 POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
Existence of a youth policy
Existence of Voter Education
Voiced opinion to official (15-24)
D5 CIVIC PARTICIPATION Volunteered Time
Youth helped a stranger

12. What does YDI add to existing measures?
• Youth development is a multi dimensional concept
• By aggregating the available stock of data in one
comprehensive and harmonised measure we are able to
gain a better understanding of youth development in a
single snapshot
• The research informs of data gaps, and where data
collection efforts need to be focused.

13. Data Challenges
• Harmonization challenges between the 15-24 and 15-29
age group definition. Most available sources tend to use
15-24.
• Small States tend to be problematic
• Thematically, the Political Participation and Civic
Participation domains are most problematic
• Disaggregated data
• National averages will hide regional variations, distinctly
more problematic in very large population or land mass
countries
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14. What the YDI is not…
• The YDI does not cover all aspects of youth development in their fullness,
it is limited by the number and quality of indicators which can be
included in it.
• The YDI is dynamic and changes over time, however progress within
youth development is slow moving and certain policy impacts can take
generations to measure. As such, slow or lagged movement can be
expected from policy change, as opposed to immediate, large score
changes.
• Composite indicators are a way to measure complex ideas simply, which
can lead to important fluctuations, inequalities and localised issues being
hidden in the overall scores.
• Disaggregation of the YDI into cohorts of interest whether cultural,
geographical, gender or ethnic could lead to better informed policy than
using the YDI as a whole.

15. www.youthdevelopmentindex.org
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16. Highlights
The majority of the world, 144 countries of
the 185 measured, recorded improvements
in their YDI score over the last five years.
As a result, over 1.2 billion young people
live in countries showing progress in youth
development.

17. Overview of Asia Pacific Region

18. Overview of South Asia

19. South Asia Ranking – YDI 2016

21. Political and Civic Participation
• Youth Participation in the formal political processes and
institutions is declining in most parts of the world except
in some of the relatively fledging democracies, where
young people tend to be more optimistic and confident
about their ability to make a difference through voting and
involvement in formal politics.
• The decline in young people’s interests in formal politics
does not mean that they care less about politics. Youth are
more engaged with civic and political affairs today more
than ever as can be seen in the rising tide of youth led
protests and single issue campaigns. This suggests that
young people preferring alternative modes of participation
over traditional and formal routes.

22. Political and Civic Participation
• ICTs have increased youth participation in civic affairs and
low politics. The relationship between access to ICTs and
youth participation, however is not straightforward.
Challenges persist of unequal access, unclear causal
pathways, superficial nature of impact and susceptibility
to greater government control.
• Poor uneducated youth, rural youth and young women are
less engaged in formal and informal politics than other
young people.

23. Political and Civic Participation
• To enhance young people’s involvement in politics,
governments across the world have tried a number of
measures including awareness campaigns, compulsory
voting, youth quotas, lower age requirements,
establishment of NYCs and citizenship education.
• Evidence suggest that while citizenship education can
improve young peoples personal social development and
their participation in more individualised and informal
forms of engagement, compulsory voting and youth quotas
can partially help address the youth participation deficit in
formal politics.

24. Youth Policy
• Review of NYPs has sought to include provisions for youth
civic and political engagement, secure the right of youth
people to associate, move, participate and express their
ideas freely.
• Provisions for establishment of youth platforms and spaces
for engagement
• Provision for civic education

25. Regional Comparisons

26. Gender Gaps
•Gender gaps differ across regions, levels of
development and countries and need to be
investigated at fine levels of disaggregation
for evidence-based policy design.
• More and better data would assist in
understanding and developing targeted policy
around gender issues.
•But only half (nine of 18) are disaggregated by
both sex and age, hindering detailed analysis
of the experiences of young females compared
to young males.

27. Political and Civic Participation
for Males vs Females
• One Political and two Civic Participation indicators have
sex disaggregated data but those indicators are not
disaggregated by age as well.
• As a result, it is not possible to know what percentage of
young females vis-à-vis young males Helped a Stranger,
Volunteered Time, Voiced an Opinion to an Official or
received Voter Education. There may be substantial but as
yet unknown differences in the way young people engage
in their communities and political processes .

28. Regional and National YDI Toolkit

29. Why Look at sub-National Data?
• Use of data in policy and program design, implementation
and evaluation is a growing trend which allows for trust in
programs from communities with added accountability and
transparency
• Data at finer levels increases the lessons which can be
learnt from it.
• National averages will hide regional variations, distinctly
more problematic in very large population or land mass
countries.

30. Challenges In National YDIs
1. Primary data sources having inadequate information;
2. Dedicated staff members to collect data;
3. Provision of data - outdated sources;
4. At the Ministry level issues such as downtime, lack of a
culture of reporting, compliance issues, lack of standardized
reporting, competing mandates; different mandates; more
demands and more challenges to meet needs;
5. Competing priorities at decision making levels;
6. Use of data not integrated into planning and policy and hence
monitoring and evaluation continually being seen as
secondary tools.

31. Recommendations
1. Continue to build capacity of Youth Officials, young
people, CSOs in evidence based youth policy.
2. Promote the development of national and regional YDIs
3. Continue to support efforts for global data revolution for
SDGs
4. Continue to encourage partnerships between NSOs and
Youth Officials
5. Continue to advocate for better youth data

32. Layne Robinson
Head of Programmes
l.robinson@commonwealth.int
November 2016